A Story About Her
by Phoenix Atalanta
Summary: This is a story about her, says the man on the radio, and you are concerned, because this is a story you feel as though you didn't realise you were never meant to know.


This is a story about her, says the man on the radio, and you are concerned, because this is a story you feel as though you didn't realise you were never meant to know.

She sits in front of a television broadcasting static, one of the bulbs in the overhead has blown and it is fairly dark in the room. In fact the only piece of electronic equipment that appears to be working is the radio, she realises this is odd because it had been just slightly alight only four hours ago.

As she sits there, pondering, she realises another odd thing about the radio in the fact that the voice emitting from it is talking about her. A brief stirring of excitement- she had always wanted hear about herself on the radio. However, the excitement is short lived as her attention turns back to the television, white noise flooding her ears once more. Glassy sea-green eyes reflect the nothing being shown, her long brown hair looking strangely dull in the dark. Curled up on the ragged sofa, her entire countenance projects her boredom and, from that, the man on the radio projects this across the small desert community.

Minutes become hours, even the screeching and howling of the sunrise on the horizon have passed before she moves. Suddenly, a blink, a yawn, a scratch on her nose- she moves into the kitchen and drinks a cup of tea (white, two sugars). Calm replaces the boredom until that too is replaced by an unidentifiable nervous energy. The brief reprieve has awoken her and she is soon pacing across hard-wood floor, picking up odd bits of paper, only to place them atop another stack in the room. In her mind she is in another, past life with a job, ambitions, a future and maybe even a partner?

At High School she had graduated top of her electronics class- prideful not a word usually associated with her, now being allowed to flourish. That however, was elsewhere, in Night Vale she sits alone in her room with various broken electronics surrounding her.

The clock on the mantelpiece is not electronic. Therefore, at precisely 4:15 one terrible joke of a Wednesday, a ring of an alarm- followed by the slam of a door as she leaves her room for good.

Think now listeners, of a beating heart. Feel it inside the cavity of your chest, think of what it symbolises, what it does and how it feels... There is blood running under your finger tips and blood filling your brain. Now, think of her- think of the blood running down her arm as she catches her elbows on the trees she flees through. Think of her blood rushing in her ears until the only sound she can hear is her own beating heart.

Running faster than a man confronted with past failures, she jumps rocks and ducks low branches. All the while she remains calm, the only thing calm in this entire world for past, present and foreseeable future.

Rising up on the horizon is a tower that looks like a radio station, smells like a radio station, has the dangerous radiation outpouring of a radio station. She comes to the conclusion that it is probably the radio station.

Coming to a grinding halt in the parking lot, she advances through the foreboding grey doors and into a corridor of bright yellow. There is a mural on the wall depicting teeth- 'A Smiling God' is the title underneath, printed in bright red calligraphy. The man on the radio is not the man being broadcast to Night Vale. The man on the radio that has been there all along is plugged into a chip in her ear- a present from the Secret Police- he announces. She has no to doubt him as he has thus far been entirely truthful as to her actions and moods. Listening now to the city-wide broadcast, she recoils from a sickening- sweet voice of a woman and the voice of a man who once had a voice of his own. Corporate takeover, she concedes, is a damaging thing indeed.

There is blood seeping into her shoes. She pays it no heed as she strides along the corridor, breath finally running short.

At last she finds a door leading to a studio. The voices announce the weather segment to the general populace of the town. Mumbling the secret password presented to her in a dream totally not by angels, she is afforded entrance into the studio.

There is blood around her ankles now.

There is blood in her fingernails.

It is the blood of the rays of a Smiling God.

Her job complete, she listens as the voice of the man in her ear tells Night Vale that they have recovered the station. At that point he stops broadcasting the Story about her, much more important news of the rebellion taking the spot. She doesn't mind though, the story continues regardless.

In fact, she finds it oddly fitting that she ends the day caked in blood- it is her birthday after all and what is a birthday without cake?


End file.
